


i know a shortcut

by Reishiin



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Canon Divergence, M/M, Mid-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 22:32:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9405782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/pseuds/Reishiin
Summary: How Yuuma falls for Shingetsu Rei.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read as canonverse, canon divergent wrt Shingetsu's identity, or AU where Shingetsu and Vector are different people.

 

 

 

 

Takashi is standing in the classroom doorway, his hands outstretched to bar Shingetsu from leaving, and giving Shingetsu the most severe talking-to Yuuma has ever heard.

“—I really, really didn't mean to be late,” Shingetsu says, looking for all the world like someone just threw his lunch on the ground and stomped all over it and he can't understand how anybody would do something like that. "I look for shortcuts all the time so I can get to school sooner. I even left home early..."

Takashi doesn't look convinced at all, so Yuuma intervenes. "Hey, class monitor. Shingetsu's telling the truth. He really wouldn't have been late if he hadn't crashed into me. But more importantly," he says, pushing past Takashi and strategically leaving enough room for Shingetsu to follow, "—it's lunchtime, and I wanna eat."

In the space of about half a second, Shingetsu's downcast expression changes into a smile, and as he runs after Yuuma it's suddenly like nothing in the last half hour ever happened. "Me too!"

Even Takashi can't really do anything against both of them.

 

* * *

 

But the class monitor really had a point, Yuuma thinks. This can't go on. He'd had to stay after class for detention three times in the past week, and now he steels himself to chase Shingetsu down and tell him that he can't go to school with him any more.

“Shingetsu! Hey, Shingetsu!”

At the crossroads where they usually meet, Shingetsu turns around, and his whole face lights up when he sees Yuuma. "I found a shortcut," he says without preamble, and then starts rummaging around in his bag for his datapad.

"Hey, Shingetsu, there's something I gotta tell you..."

But Shingetsu ignores it completely while he sorts through his assortment of books and stationery and gadgets. Eventually, he fishes the datapad from his bookbag and pulls up a map of Heartland City. "See, if we..."

He flicks through maps and points out routes like he knows them all by heart. He must really have spent a lot of time researching all of it. He'd even made sure that all of the routes he planned went by Yuuma's house.

"—so we will save a total of 13.4 minutes," he says, and finally looks up. "But, Yuuma-kun, you had something to tell me?"

Yuuma blinks. "Oh— it's nothing," he says. After hearing all that, Yuuma feels terribly bad. He was mad for a while about always having to stay after school, but now he finds he can't be annoyed at Shingetsu any more. He's never been able to stay angry at anyone for long. He can't believe that he would ever have thought about abandoning a friend.

In any case, it’s okay, Yuuma decides, if it makes Shingetsu smile like that.

 

* * *

 

_"You trust me, right, Yuuma-kun?"_

 

* * *

 

Shingetsu is a very different kind of person than anybody Yuuma knows. He’s not like Shark, who always held anger too close to his heart for anyone to ever pry away. He’s not like Kaito, whose soul the universe could not possibly hold. What Shingetsu is— is happy.

Even when splashing through the sewers, or while getting chased by dogs through somebody's back yard, he always wears that expression. It's the same way III had looked when he had been going through Father's artefacts, and at that time, Yuuma had realised that that expression on someone else’s face is something he always wants to hold on to.

—Shingetsu's smile is simple and bright and it warms Yuuma like sunlight.

Now, three paces ahead, Shingetsu skids to a stop at the very edge of the building's roof, gauges the jump to the next rooftop over as he waits for Yuuma to catch up. He’s gasping for breath, flushed from the exertion of running. Far below, the pack of dogs barks furiously up at them. Shingetsu mops at his forehead with the back of one hand, looks from the dogs to Yuuma to the far-off shape of Heartland Academy in the distance—they’re terribly late again, of course—and he laughs and laughs and laughs. It’s infectious, and as Yuuma catches up to Shingetsu he finds himself laughing, too.

"I really like you, Yuuma,” Shingetsu says out of nowhere, breathlessly. He grabs Yuuma's wrist, the movement familiar after so many dashes down the flight of stairs just outside Heartland Park; tugs on their linked hands so that Yuuma loses his balance and falls right into him, and he catches Yuuma by the shoulders and pulls him close and kisses him.

Yuuma's eyes fly open, and he shoves at Shingetsu and staggers back, flushing furiously. "W-what was-"

"I felt like it," Shingetsu says, with a smile as brilliant as the sun, and then he does it again. Softer, this time, with his eyes open, and Yuuma's acutely aware of the heat radiating from his own face as Shingetsu's mouth slants against his own before he pulls away. "Is that okay, Yuuma-kun?"

Yuuma still hasn't really come down from the high of running, dizzy with vertigo and adrenaline quick and heavy through his veins, sweat beading on his forehead and the back of his neck, sunlight in his eyes blinding everything. He really, really doesn't know what he's feeling. "Yes, it's fine..."

Shingetsu just laughs again and tugs on Yuuma's hand, away from the building's edge this time. He leads Yuuma down the stairs, back onto the pavement and the long way to school (the _usual_ way, Yuuma reminds himself) and doesn't let go until they reach Heartland Academy. They're late, of course, but Yuuma's just surprised that they'd made it all the way without further incident.

At break Astral comes out of the key, he takes one look at Yuuma's face and asks what happened. Yuuma blinks and says, "Nothing out of the ordinary..."

And it's true, nothing has changed, not really. Lunchtime on the roof of Heartland Academy with the afternoon sun warm and high in the sky, Kotori laughing at one of Tadashi's jokes and Shark sitting to one side with an exasperated expression. Shingetsu's shoulder against Yuuma's own, Shingetsu's hand warm in his and Yuuma thinks, maybe this is the way it was always supposed to be.

 

* * *

 

Shingetsu is tactile with affection, doesn't know what personal space is. It's sometimes uncomfortable, but rarely unpleasant, and anyway it isn't much different from the way things already are. Yuuma is already used to it, so it is simple for Shingetsu to catch Yuuma around the waist instead of by the shoulder, or to take his hand and lace their fingers together when they walk home side by side past the river after school.

At night, long after both of them are supposed to be asleep, Shingetsu will throw pebbles at Yuuma's window and shimmy up the tree behind Yuuma's house and wait for Yuuma to join him on the roof, and they lie on the slanting tiles and lace their fingers together and look up at the stars in the sky and talk about everything and nothing at all. Yuuma tells Kazuma's stories, dutifully collected over countless archaeology expeditions, and Shingetsu makes up his own, stories about gods and sacrifices and cosmic wars that sound straight out of mythology books.

And the things that Shingetsu does then, consciously or unconsciously Yuuma can't tell; Shingetsu curls up on his side, tucks his head into the crook of Yuuma's neck. "Ask forgiveness not permission," he says lightly, squeezing Yuuma's hand where their fingers are laced together and leans over to kiss him, laughing a little when he shifts his weight and the slant of the roof almost makes him slip.

It makes Yuuma want to hold on to this moment forever and never let go.

 

* * *

 

Then they duel Girag.

 

* * *

 

Shingetsu becomes distant, after that. On the way to school he tags behind Yuuma, seriousness clouding his usually cheerful expression, instead of looking for new routes. And Yuuma tries not to think about it, but Shingetsu has been so close for so long that it's almost cold without him there.

In class, Yuuma sometimes catches Shingetsu looking at him from across the room, but when he notices Yuuma looking back then he quickly turns away like he’s backing down from a challenge. It’s like there’s something Shingetsu wants to say but isn’t letting himself say it, and that makes Yuuma uneasy.

At lunch, Shingetsu doesn’t scramble for the spot next to Yuuma any more, just places himself at the periphery of the group wherever there’s space. Takashi and the others must notice, but they don’t say anything. They probably just assume he’d had a fight with Yuuma.

… That’s right. Come to think of it, Shingetsu only ever goes with the others because Yuuma’s there. He’s quite alone otherwise.

That afternoon, again, Shingetsu follows behind instead of at his side. At the junction in the road where they usually go separate ways, Yuuma stops and waits for Shingetsu to catch up. Shingetsu starts to turn to Yuuma as if to say goodbye like he always used to do, but when he sees Yuuma looking, he quickly looks away and turns in his own direction.

Yuuma decides he’s had enough. “Shingetsu,” he says.

Shingetsu whirls around so fast Yuuma almost gets hit in the side with his bookbag. “Yuuma-kun. You’re— you’re talking to me again.”

Yuuma blinks. “I didn’t know we stopped." Maybe that’s what the past few days have been about.

"It doesn't bother you?" Shingetsu says. "That I lied to you?"

"It did, for a while," Yuuma says. "But you had a good reason, didn't you?"

Shingetsu ignores it. "I don't expect you to believe in me any more, Yuuma-kun,” Shingetsu says, the words spilling out like he’s been rehearsing them in his head for days. “After I lied about something like that to you. But there's something I was always telling the truth about." He reaches for Yuuma's hand, and Yuuma hesitates, but lets him take it. "Whatever I did, it was always with the best intentions. I never, never wanted you to get hurt. So I gave you the card, even though it meant revealing my real identity.”

The afternoon sun is low in the sky, right behind Shingetsu so it’s in Yuuma’s eyes. Yuuma blinks and tries to focus on Shingetsu’s face, the words he’s saying. Yuuma’s not someone who keeps secrets. But something like this— must be a terrible burden to bear.

"It's okay, Shingetsu. It's really, really okay—"

But Shingetsu's eyes are shining with tears. “There's something I wasn’t lying about. I was so happy, Yuuma-kun. I was so happy to have friends again. I was so happy with— with you.”

Warmth rises in Yuuma's chest at the words, and he reaches out to grasp Shingetsu's shoulder and pull him close, just like he’d done before their duel with Girag. Shingetsu’s body is still warm, and his weight still rests on Yuuma’s shoulder the same way. Shingetsu might be a Barian, but he’s also the same person that Yuuma has always known.

He’s still Yuuma’s friend.

"I really, really understand."

Also, Yuuma decides, Shingetsu's serious face is really cute too.

"In that case," Shingetsu says, "Yuuma-kun, can I ask you?" He looks like he's trying to rearrange his face into something more businesslike. "Please, don't tell anyone who I really am. The Barians mustn't know I'm here, and I can't put anyone else in danger. Yuuma-kun, you understand, don't you? That 'Shingetsu Rei' is an act that the world must buy?"

"Yeah, I get it," Yuuma says. "I really do."

Shingetsu's face breaks into a radiant smile and he throws his arms around Yuuma in a bear hug.

Yuuma staggers. "Shingetsu— can't — breathe—"

"Ah, I'm so sorry—"

Shingetsu laughs a bit and lets go and steps back, runs his fingers through his hair in embarrassment, and Yuuma thinks, it's fine now. We're fine now.

"So, how about joining the Cosmic Police Force as my subordinate...?"

 

* * *

 

One early morning, sitting on the rooftop of Yuuma's house after a night of Barian-hunting, Shingetsu tells him about the Seven Emperors who once were, and are no more.

Yuuma looks up at the sky— at Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, Megrez, Mizar, Alioth, Alkaid— Shingetsu had told him that those stars were the souls of those long-ago kings. "You can't see them very clearly, because of the lights of Heartland City," he had said, "but they're there. And one day they will shine so brightly that everyone will be able to see them again."

Those kings— they disappeared from the face of the universe longer ago than anyone can remember, leaving their whole world behind without its leaders. And until they return, the one called Shingetsu Rei will walk the universe to do right by their world.

"Did you know them, Shingetsu? The Barian kings?"

"No, they disappeared from the world long before I existed. But the stories say that Merak was both beautiful and strong. I've always wanted to meet her in this life."

The way he turns his face toward the sky then, so that the light of the constellation falls into his eyes— Yuuma finds it really sad. He's had to defend Barian World alone, all this time.

"Not any more," Shingetsu says, with a warm smile and a squeeze of Yuuma's hand. "You're with me now, right?"

Yuuma doesn’t know how much more time passes that night, lying there on the roof and staring up at the stars at the sky, Shingetsu's hand warm beneath his atop the rough surface of tiles. But the first morning light is just rising over the horizon as they scramble off the roof and back through Yuuma's window. "See you in a while," Shingetsu says as he heads out in his own direction, and Yuuma closes and latches the door and goes back upstairs and crumples fully clothed onto his bed, head still hazy from lack of sleep.

Shingetsu knows everything about Yuuma, but Yuuma doesn’t even know where he lives.

Later that day when they head to school Shingetsu's late, of course, so both of them are late, and Kotori looks disapproving when Yuuma collapses into his seat beside her and begins to scrape the mud from his shoes. But her disapproval softens quickly into concern.

"You look tired," she says, and even though the scratches from the barbed-wire fence still hurt, Yuuma has to smile. "It's really, really fine," he says, and rubs at his eyes. "It's for the best this way, right?"

 

* * *

 

Night over Heartland City, cool air and clouds half-obscuring the crescent moon in the sky.

"How were the Barians today, Shingetsu?"

"Mm," Shingetsu says, and draws up his knees to his chest and turns to face Yuuma. "They're getting stronger, it's like something—" He cuts himself off. "It's all right, Yuuma, I can handle it. It's nothing you have to worry about."

"That sounds - hard." Now that Yuuma thinks about it, he doesn't know what kind of battles Shingetsu has been fighting or what kind of enemies he's had to face. Who are the Barians Shingetsu is chasing—stragglers outcast from their world, or trained soldiers lying in ambush, or something else altogether? Does he duel them like he dueled Katagiri, one by one as he smokes them out of their hiding places?

"Are you scared, Shingetsu?"

If it's anything like how he and Shark and Kaito had fought that time against Dr. Faker— then Yuuma will really be more of a hindrance than a help. He's no good at dueling without Astral around. So it really can't go on, him tagging along with Shingetsu like this. But for now at least, they can do this together. For now at least, they're still winning.

(They won't win forever.)

Shingetsu squeezes Yuuma's hand. "I am," he says, and suddenly Yuuma is scared too. Yuuma doesn't know how or why, but there is the sudden sense that the day will one day come when he will never see Shingetsu Rei again.

 

* * *

 

Barians don't bleed, Shingetsu says. If one were to put a knife to this mask of skin, what would tumble out is only crystal and stone. Like this, he says, they can fight without fear. Like this, they will never be hurt.

He laughs when Yuuma pokes experimentally at the inside of his wrist. "Don't try, though." Somehow it makes Yuuma remember him saying, 'Shingetsu Rei is an act the world must buy'. Yuuma wonders if behind Shingetsu's eyes there is a kindred spirit, or if that shining surface is just glass that reflects but does not transmit.

He opens his eyes. "But this," he says, takes Yuuma's hand and places it flat against skin that is not skin atop a heart that moves but does not beat. "This is real. When I said I was so happy," Shingetsu says into his hair, "It's not a lie. It's not, Yuuma-kun."

The one whom Yuuma knows as Shingetsu Rei, who closes his eyes and pillows his head on his hands and turns his face towards the sky. He might not be genuine, but that doesn't mean he isn't real, and nothing in all the three worlds could have prepared for such an eventuality. Shingetsu's breathing still keeps the same time, his eyes still flutter closed the same way when Yuuma reaches up to touch his face. The distance between the truth and what Yuuma understands wavers the world around him like a glitch in the AR-vision field but Yuuma believes in Shingetsu unconditionally, like he has always done and always will do.

Yuuma feels the breath waver and catch in his throat. "Shingetsu, you—"

"I, what?"

"—ah, never mind," he says. "Just, I'm glad."

"Yuuma-kun." Shingetsu's voice is steady; he closes his eyes and pulls Yuuma close, presses a kiss into Yuuma's hair. "If you are, then so am I."

 

* * *

 

After lunch as everyone is heading back upstairs for their next class, Shingetsu stops just outside the door to the stairwell. "Ah, you all go ahead without me, I have to go to the bathroom first."

"Me too," Yuuma says.

Shark, at the back of the group, throws them both a look before he follows the others. Yuuma doesn’t like the expression on his face. He’s probably realised by now that they were keeping a secret.

There’s a shadow over Shingetsu's expression, too, as he looks at Shark’s retreating back.

“Shark’s just worried,” Yuuma offers. “He knows about Barian, too, and he said it's not good for any of us to go anywhere on our own. Maybe we should tell him—”

“No!” Shingetsu says, then seems to regret the outburst. "Someone like Ryouga-kun, he won't understand. And I can't drag Ryouga-kun into something like that." Shingetsu reaches over to lace his fingers through Yuuma's. "I'm sorry, I know it's hard to keep a secret from a friend, but..."

"Then I won't, Shingetsu," Yuuma says. "I won't bring him into this if you don't want me to."

 

* * *

 

Later, sitting on Yuuma's roof with his face turned to the sky, Shingetsu says, "You know, Yuuma-kun, I'm very glad I met you."

Over Shingetsu's wrist where a pulse should beat but does not, Yuuma traces the kanji of Shingetsu's name— Shingetsu says it's pronounced and written a very different way in a language long dead, but the meaning is about the same. _Truth_ , for the oath of allegiance to the Seven Emperors he must always believe in. _Moon_ , for a clear sky when the Barian constellation can be seen. And _zero_ , because Shingetsu Rei exists for one reason only and if he can't protect Barian World, if he's not the Barian Guardian, then he isn't anything at all."

"My surname's a number too," Yuuma says.

"Oh?" Shingetsu says and turns to face him. "Where's that from, do you know?"

"No, Dad never said..."

Maybe it was meaningful a long time ago, or maybe somebody thought it up and somebody else liked it and it got passed down that way. It's just one more thing Dad had left him— like the collection of artefacts in the attic, and the Emperor's Key, and kattobing. One thing that leads to another and another and another. Heartland Academy and Astral and the Numbers, Kotori and Shark and Kaito and the World Duel Carnival. All of that happened and brought him here to the roof of his own house on this night, to Shingetsu Rei, to Shingetsu Rei and this moment. This moment, when the universe doesn't matter and Barian doesn't matter and the two of them aren't the Numbers Collector and the Barian Protector but just children trying to find something within their hearts under this vast sky full of stars that don't care if they live or die.

The Emperor's Key is a small warm weight against Yuuma's chest, and the corners dig into the flesh of his palm when he wraps fingers around it to be sure it's still there. Yuuma doesn't need an artefact to remember Shingetsu the way he needs to remember kattobing, because Shingetsu is so woven through every fiber of his being that there isn't any kind of magic in this world or in Barian that can take that from him without taking him, too.

Yuuma holds on to the Key and wonders when it became this important to him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Late night at the docks amidst mazelike towers of shipping containers. Yuuma is glad he has run the twists and turns of Heartland City's streets with Shingetsu so many times over so many days, because now he knows how to read a map, to follow directions and to find the way.

"His name is Vector," Shingetsu says, and a shadow crosses his face when he says that name and Yuuma wonders what happened there. "I have to go after him."

"All right," Yuuma says. He does not know why, but there is something about this situation that makes him feel uneasy. It's a sense of an ending. It's a sense that he needs to hold on to Shingetsu now and not let him leave, because if Shingetsu leaves then he'll never come back.

But Yuuma can't do that, not when Shingetsu has to do his job, so he squeezes Shingetsu's hand instead. "All right. But you'll come back, right, Shingetsu," and he's surprised to hear that his voice is shaking.

Shingetsu's grip tightens in his like a promise, and when he lets go he leaves five cards in Yuuma's hand. "To keep you safe," he says. There are tears shining in his eyes. "And I will, of course I will, Yuuma-kun. Trust me. I'll come back, for you..."

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
